Whether you’re headed to Europe to make the most of off-season winter travel or planning to make your way over come spring, the continent’s museums await with a slate of temporary exhibitions. Whether it’s a light art installation in Berlin, a deep dive into the history of the Roman Empire in London, or a recreation of the first-ever Impressionist Salon in Paris, there’s something special to see no matter where you’re landing. Herewith, our country-by-country picks for what to visit, wherever your upcoming Europe agenda takes you.
England
In London, the Tate family of museums has a can’t-miss upcoming slate. At the Tate Britain, from February 22 to July 7, 2024, Sargent and Fashion explores the ways portrait painter John Singer Sargent used clothing to express identity and personality in 60 of his most important paintings, many of which rarely travel. Also at the Tate Britain, Now You See Us spans the journeys of women artists over 400 years, from the Tudor era through World War I. The show is on from May 16 to October 13, 2024.
Over at the Tate Modern, Outi Pieski is the first large-scale exhibition in the UK of the eponymous Sámi visual artist, whose work uses traditional Sámi craft practices to explore indigenous themes and the relationship between people and nature. The exhibit runs from February 10 to May 6, 2024. Another solo show at the Tate Modern, albeit one backed by global star power, is Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind, on view from February 1 to September 1, 2024. The exhibition features seven decades’ worth of Ono’s music, conceptual and performance art, and experimental films.
Finally, from April 25 to October 20, 2024, the Tate Modern’s third spring highlight is Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter and the Blue Rider, a landmark collaboration with the Lenbachhaus in Munich that brings together over 130 works by the circle of friends known as The Blue Rider. This 20th century group consisted of painters, sculptures, and photographers, anchored by Wassily Kandinsky and Gabriele Münter.
And now for something completely different: should you or a loved one spend far too much time thinking about the Roman Empire, make your way to the British Museum from February 1 to June 23, 2024 for Legion: Life in the Roman Army, which explores Roman military history from a deeply personal standpoint. This exhibition transports visitors through the life and service of Roman soldier Claudius Terentianus as well as explores the effect of Rome’s war machines on soldiers, their families, and the military communities that once stretched across modern-day Europe.
Spain
Madrid’s excellent Thyssen-Bornemisza is showing its first-ever retrospective devoted entirely to a Spanish woman artist with Isabel Quintanilla’s Intimate Realism, on view from February 27 to June 2, 2024. Quintanilla, who died in 2017, was one of the key figures of contemporary realism in Spain. Thyssen-Bornemisza’s retrospective will feature over 100 of her paintings and drawings from throughout her career. Opening later in spring and running from May 21 to September 22, 2024, the Museo del Prado will examine the role of art in the major societal sea change the country underwent during the late 19th century, via Art and Social Transformation in Spain (1885-1910). This exhibition offers viewers a retrospective of some of the period’s finest creative output alongside insight into a time that saw Spain greatly reduced as a major global power.
On a lighter note, the Guggenheim Bilbao dives into all things Pop Art from February 16 to September 15, 2024, with Signs and Objects. Curated from the Guggenheim’s collection, this exhibition features artists like Jim Dine, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, and James Rosenquist.
Italy
With over 90 works on view, borrowed from Paris’s Musée D’Orsay, Florence’s Uffizi, and many others, the Palazzo Reale Milano is staging a major retrospective of the 19th century painter Guiseppe De Nittis, one of just a handful of Italian artists to make a name for himself among the Paris Impressionists. De Nittis. Painter of Modern Life will be on view from February 4 to June 30, 2024.
If you’re headed to Florence and need a momentary respite from endless Renaissance wonders, stop by the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi for Anselm Kiefer: Fallen Angels, dedicated to fifty years of the German artist’s explorations of themes of memory, myth, and war. The show is on view from March 22 to July 21, 2024.
France
From March 26 to July 14, 2024, the Musée d’Orsay does what it does best with Paris 1874: Inventing Impressionism, which celebrates the 150th anniversary of the first Impressionist exhibition to open in Paris. The exhibit pairs work from the original show with art shown at Paris’s official Salon the same year, contrasting the new guard with the establishment of the era. Across town, the Centre Pompidou pays homage to Constantin Brancusi from March 27 to July 1, 2024, showcasing the father of modern sculpture’s three-dimensional work as well as his photographs, drawings, and films, in a show simply titled Brancusi.
The Summer Olympics return to Paris in 2024 for the first time in 100 years. To get a sense of what they would have looked like a century ago, pay a visit to En Jeu! Artists and Sport (1870-1930), on view at the Musée Marmottan Monet from April 4 to September 1, 2024. Featuring artists like Monet, Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Rodin, among many others, the exhibit explores how, from Impressionism to Cubism, sport and athletics became icons of modernity.
If your French travels are taking you farther south, stop by the Musée National Marc Chagall, a lovely small museum in the hills of Nice. From January 27 to May 13, 2024, the museum is celebrating the recent acquisition of four more of Chagall’s works, including the rare gouache The Mexican Rider in Red and His Violet Horse (1943), with an exhibit aptly titled Enhancing the Collections: New Acquisitions.
Austria
Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien celebrates three Renaissance pioneers with Holbein. Burgkmair. Dürer. Renaissance in the North, from March 19 to June 30, 2024. The exhibit explores how, particularly thanks to Hans Holbein the Elder and Hans Burgkmair, the city of Augsburg became the birthplace of the Northern Renaissance during the 16th century. Moving forward to the 19th and 20th centuries, Secessions: Klimt, Stuck, Liebermann, on view at the Wien Museum from May 23 to October 13, 2024, looks at the way prominent artists of the day in Vienna, Munich, and Berlin made a symbolic break from the reigning art institutions of the era.
Bringing us to the present, the Albertina Modern celebrates The Beauty of Diversity from February 16 to August 18, 2024, featuring an incredible array of contemporary and recent artists including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Cecily Brown, Alexandre Diop, and Tracey Moffatt, among many others. Over at the Albertina, meanwhile, you can go deep into the oeuvre of just one artist, Roy Lichtenstein. From March 8 to July 14, 2024, Roy Lichtenstein: A Centennial Exhibition presents over 90 paintings, sculptures, and graphic works spanning the Pop Art master’s career.
Germany
It’s impossible not to find something appealing among the special exhibitions opening this winter and spring all over Berlin. First, visit 1920s Paris at the Neue Nationalgalerie, which celebrates an original media phenomenon via Josephine Baker: Icon in Motion, from January 26 to April 28, 2024. For a completely different sort of icon, the Alte Nationalgalerie’s Caspar David Friedrich: Infinite Landscapes, on view from April 19 to August 4, 2024, marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of the German Romantic movement’s most famous painter.
Berlin’s slate of shows focused on single artists continues at Hamburger Bahnhof, which will present all of its works by Joseph Beuys starting from March 22, 2024. Joseph Beuys: Collection Presentation will be on view indefinitely, accompanied by a rotating series of pieces by contemporary artists. Across town at the photography museum C/O Berlin, the retrospective Valie Export highlights the icon of feminist art’s photography, performance art, and films which she produced between 1966 to 2009.
Our final recommendation for Berlin this winter and spring isn’t a museum, but a decommissioned power plant. The contemporary light artist Christopher Bauder presents an immersive audiovisual installation, Vektor: Memories in Light & Sound, from February 1 to April 7, 2024, at Kraftwerk Berlin. The synesthetic work processes Bauder’s memories into an abstract, monumental light art experience.
Just outside Berlin, the Museum Barberini in Potsdam broadens the view of Modigliani’s painting from Paris, where he produced his most famous work, to a more Europe-wide perspective, with Modigliani: Modern Gazes, on view from April 27 to August 18, 2024.
Elsewhere in Germany, don’t miss Samaneh Atef, Belén Sánches, Desmond Tjonakoy at Munich’s Haus der Kunst. Running from May 17 to July 14, 2024, the exhibit showcases the most recent winners of the European Award for Painting and Graphic Arts. In Hamburg, the Kunstverein presents a cycle of work specially developed for the institution by painter Silk Otto-Knapp. The result, Silke Otto-Knapp: Bühnenbilder, on view from January 27 to April 14, 2024, uses painting to examine the histories of acting, dance, and cinema.
Norway
Where better to see a major survey of Edvard Munch’s depictions of nature than Oslo? The Munch Museet puts on Trembling Earth, an exploration of the artist’s fascination with the natural world, from April 4 to August 25, 2024. The celebration of nature continues at the Munch Museet with Corpus Infinitum, on view from February 17 to May 26, 2024. Created by Denise Ferreira da Silva and filmmaker Arjuna Neuman, the show combines video, museum, animation, and text to reimagine the natural world without humanity at its center.
Denmark
Copenhagen’s National Gallery opens a retrospective of Alberto Giacometti’s sculptures, drawings, and paintings on February 10 with Alberto Giacometti — What Meets the Eye. The exploration of the sculptor’s interpretation of the human experience runs through May 20, 2024. A short train ride outside the city, the Louisiana presents Northern Europe’s first retrospective of the Paris expressionist Chaïm Soutine. Featuring around seventy of the painter’s works, this exhibition demonstrates the painter’s importance to the School of Paris and his eventual influence on Abstract Expressionism. Visit from February 9 to July 14, 2024.
Special Mentions
In Amsterdam, stop by the Rijksmuseum from February 16 to June 9, 2024 for a retrospective on freewheeling 17th century painter Frans Hals. Continuing in the theme of humorous and provocative, see the contemporary work of Maurizio Cattelan in The Third Hand. On view at Stockholm’s Moderna Museet from February 2, 2024 to January 12, 2025, this exhibition showcases the satirical Italian artist’s most iconic pieces.
Heading south to Prague, the National Gallery explores the fine art of printmaking with the exhibition, From Michelangelo to Callot. The Art of Mannerist Printmaking, on view from May 17 to August 11, 2024. Finally, should your travels take you to Poland, don’t miss Surrealism, put on by the National Museum in Warsaw from May 10 to August 11, 2024. With loans from the Centre Pompidou, Tate Modern, Museo Reina Sofia, and more, this comprehensive exhibition showcases Surrealist trends in Polish art from the 20th century.
Cover photo by Christopher Bauder via Vektor
Written January 2024
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